Sunday, June 1, 2014

An Argentine in Oslo

While it’s not the main reason for my traveling to Scandinavia,
I can’t help but be interested in the Southern Cone countries’ links to the
land of my ancestors. Thus, following the suggestion of a Norwegian contact in Buenos Aires, I paid a flying
visit to the Caminito Tango-Café, named
for the iconic pedestrian street in the barrio of La Boca.

In reality, the name was a bit misleading for a place that
turned out to be primarily a pizzeria, though it does offer other Argentine
specialties including empanadas and medialunas
(the Argentine version of the croissant). Married to a Norwegian, its owner is
a gregarious young man from the Patagonian city of Río Gallegos rather than
Buenos Aires, and his pizza conforms to the thin-crusted Italian style rather
than the doughier, cheesier Argentine version that greets visitors to the
Argentine capital. That, said Maximiliano, wouldn’t fly in Norway (his Latvian employee, pictured below with him, surprised me with her Spanish).

On a short visit to Oslo, my wife and I were not really seeking pizza, though I might have indulged in a slice of onion-rich fugazzeta
had it been available. The Caminito has been in Oslo’s Grünerløkka
district for four years, a virtual lifetime in the restaurant business, so he’s
clearly doing something right. If and when we return to Oslo for a longer stay,
I hope he’ll still be there.

Argentina Travel Adventures App

With more than 30 years living and traveling in Latin America, I write guidebooks to the "Southern Cone" countries - so called because of their shape on the map - of Chile and Argentina. I'm especially interested in the remote, scenic Patagonian region overlapping the two countries. I am the sole author of Moon Handbooks to Argentina; Chile & Easter Island; Buenos Aires, including the city's hinterland and coastal Uruguay; and Patagonia, including the Falkland Islands.
I have a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley, and have done research in Peru, Chile, Argentina and the Falklands, where I spent a year as a Fulbright-Hays scholar.
My home base is Oakland, California, but I spend five months a year in southern South America. I often stay in Buenos Aires, where my Argentine wife and I have a second home, an apartment in the barrio of Palermo.
I speak fluent Spanish, less fluent German, serviceable Portuguese and desperation French.
Any questions, please contact me at southerncone (at) mac.com, or leave comments by clicking on the word "comment" at the bottom of each entry. Comments are moderated, but I get to them quickly.